Alice Oppen honoured with OAM
1 Feb 11
Alice Arnott Oppen was awarded OAM, on January 26th, 2011, “For service to the community through a range of roles with heritage, women’s and charitable organisations”
Alice has had an active life as a teacher, feminist, environmentalist, company director and writer
In the Hunter’s Hill Trust in the ‘70s and ‘80s, Alice Oppen argued the case for area conservation within the municipality, editing publications which detail history and architecture of hundreds of old buildings making up the townscape, served as editor and president.
Other involvements included a women’s group publishing “Local Issue”, a periodical which covered issues overlooked in those days in main media, ‘women’s issues’ such as health and education.
Battling to save Australian owned companies led to in the 90’s and 00’s to positions as a non-executive director on the boards of Arnotts Ltd., ChildFund Australia, ChildFund International, The NSW State Library Foundation, Family Planning NSW and SH & Family Planning Australia provided knowledge and a view of how overseas aid organisations can be most effective. A Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, Alice in 2004 combined her interests in the creation of a new organisation addressing a fundamental need.
She established and chairs Women’s Plans Foundation, which raises funds and advocates family planning in neighbouring countries where unwanted rapid population rise perpetuates poverty and submission of women.
Benefits of family planning are health, survival rates and sustainability.
Women can combine childbearing with their own development into increasingly responsible positions, more able to seek a sound future. Increasingly it is clear that the growing world population is aggravating climate change by consuming the natural resources of developing countries, so that helping women to avoid some of the 32 million unintended pregnancies each year will be incrementally helpful in containing impacts.
With a life-long love of literature, Alice wrote Shakespeare: Listening to the Women and published a collection of her own writing, Just While I’m Waiting, which makes it clear that while there is need in the world, she is impelled to activism and involvement.